Hammockeering Around: Dreams do come true

I'd like to talk about my hammocks for a moment. My first hammock was an original Hennessy hammock. I bought it in 2006 for a 1200 mile jaunt on the Appalachian trail. Seemingly, I was an early adopter as I met almost no one else using a hammock. I have since heard they are quite popular on the trail. My second Hennessy hammock was their extra large version. A sharable size, I bought it for a bike tour across Washington and Oregon with a girlfriend. Washington and Oregon are a hammockeer's paradise. My third Hennessy hammock I am in right now as I write this, the ultralight model. To this point it has accompanied me across 26 countries in nearly 550 days. I've slept in it over 400 nights. Worn ropes, worn zippers and ant attacks have left it functional, but haggard. Now, Hennessy Hammocks is generously sending me a new one. Inspired by my journey they are happily supporting the cause. A sponsorship if you will. That is to say, I am sponsored by a hammock company to sleep in a hammock. Dreams really do come true.

Now onto Peru. This place is great. At the border I entered into a low dry area inhabited mostly by goats. No leaf or bud existed anywhere below three and a half feet. As I continued towards the coast the landscape became drier until I was crossing a lifeless coastal plain of sand and wind and sun. The environment was harsh and grating and I could see it in the small towns I passed. One evening, just before I disappeared off the road to camp, I was stopped by police. They informed me that no hotels, no civilization really, were around and that this section of highway was unsafe. With that they poured me a cup of Inca Cola, lashed my bike to the roof of their Nissan and drove me to an intersection where I was handed off to a passing flatbed truck and finally deposited at a patrolled toll booth. After being driven across miles of serene, empty, moonlit desert I camped next to the noisy road under a floodlight. It was not my greatest night of sleep. In the morning the police planned to escorted me 20 miles into town. After a mile they became bored of my pace and so we leapfrogged each other until I arrived.

It wasn't long before I left the desert in favor of mountains. I climbed for four days along a river and then up the side of a mountain, gaining over 12000 feet before pointing downhill. I am starting to get acquainted with Peru's love of switchbacks. These mountains are steep, they have no choice but to embrace switchbacks. I think they're great. Going up is just as fun as going down.

Rolling through a small town one morning I stopped at the town square to eat my breakfast and saw a sign welcoming the president. I asked a woman sitting on a bench, "The president of what?". "Peru" was the answer that came back with a smile of pride. He was arriving that day to give a speech. It seemed like a rare opportunity that I decided not to miss. A couple hours later his helicopter passed overhead and shortly thereafter he arrived to a crowd of a couple hundred. Dressed in jeans and a white dress shirt he looked like a man of the people. When he spoke his words were powerful and filled with emotion, his gesturing large and his cadence perfect. I couldn't help but cheer. I had no idea what he said. He wasn't reading road signs aloud or asking where I was coming from or going to so his speech fell well outside of my vocabulary. Later I joined a crowd to look at his helicopter. It was pretty cool.